


There Might Be Light Somewhere

by LinnaeaBorealis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hermione Granger Needs a Hug, Hogwarts Professors, One Shot, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, but there again because why not, hermione is a defense against the dark arts professor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28526118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinnaeaBorealis/pseuds/LinnaeaBorealis
Summary: The war is over and Hermione is working as a DADA professor. That's pretty ironic if you ask her, but apart from the letters from her friends, it's the only thing that keeps her sane.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Kudos: 10





	There Might Be Light Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> English is not my native language so I apologize for all the grammar mistakes. This is also my very first time writing a fanfic, please don't set the bar too high. Hope you enjoy and don't forget to comment your opinion!

Three years are rarely enough to heal people after a war. Hermione knew it better than anyone. 

"That's all for today," she said, "see you on Thursday." She smiled friendly at her students and waited for them to leave the classroom. "Mr. Clark, could you please shut the door behind you," she asked, and the curly-haired boy nodded.

Then Hermione sat behind her desk and looked around the empty classroom. Oh, to be a first-year again. There had been times without constant fear and anxiety, but she was not sure if she wanted to look back on the past. And even Poppy Pomfrey didn't say that time would heal all the wounds. (Because nobody really knows how much time you need if you happen to fight in a war against Voldemort _as a_ _child_.) Instead of saying that, Poppy gave Hermione vials of Sleeping Draught and some chocolate biscuits because she knew that Hermione needed to eat much more.

The classroom hadn't changed at all. Hermione remembered Professor Lupin sitting there once, behind that same wooden desk, tired and broken but still giving all his time and knowledge to his students. She wondered if she felt the same as he did in her third year. And every time she thought about Remus, she regretted it. Because Remus wasn't there; hadn't been for over three years. He might have been the only person who would have really understood what it felt like to come back, when the war had changed things permanently and when you have seen your friends dying. He would have known how painful it was to return to a place once full of joy; now just full of memories haunting insidiously behind the corner.

It's raining outside, Hermione noticed. She watched the raindrops sliding down the glass like tears.

Hermione didn't sleep much without a drop of Sleeping Draught. She had nightmares - most of them about the past. Those were the worst ones. It was impossible to try to forget if you experienced everything again and again. It was like being in an endless loop: waking up, trying to focus on the present, going to sleep, doing everything again, waking up.

She liked to walk around the castle after the curfew. It was usually quiet. Sometimes there was Filch with his cat, sometimes a couple of prefects or head students doing their night duties. Sometimes some other older students sneaking in the corridors and doing something forbidden yet pretty harmless - and usually, Hermione pretended to not see or hear anything. Because _she_ knew what it was like; maybe they had some important things to do, just like they had had with Ron and Harry.

The Great Hall was at its most beautiful at night. It wasn't completely dark; there were floating candles with very dim light and above those a brightly shining night sky. Hermione had liked Astronomy in her school years, and now she could recognize almost all of the constellations. Sometimes she noticed the Canis Major and thought about Sirius. Of course, they hadn't been as close as she and Remus had, because Remus had been her teacher (and naturally Harry was much closer with both of them), but she really missed him. Although she didn't know if it would be worse if only the other of the pair had been alive - she knew that Remus and Sirius had never stopped loving each other. Maybe there was an afterlife; nobody knew. At times Hermione thought, _there has to be_.

Then, there were friends. There were Harry and Ron, busy with their Ministry jobs. Harry wrote to Hogwarts when he had time - there were long periods when he had not. Auror business, he had said every time. And Ron - well, he wrote a lot. Hermione and he used to be dating after the war. It had last approximately four months but it hadn't been even exactly dating. They both had really tried, but the war had changed them. Ron had lost her brother and Hermione herself was lost. "I think we should _—"_ Ron had started then. "I know," Hermione had answered, knowing what he was going to say. And they both knew that it was going to happen, sooner or later. But they promised to write, promised to write every single day, and so they had been writing ever since.

Harry always told about ordinary things: his relationship with Ginny, his Auroring job (as much as he could), and Ginny's success in Holyhead Harpies. _How ironic_ , Hermione often found herself thinking, _that of us three it's Harry who seems to live a steady, happy life._ But of course, she knew that the war had affected everything in Harry and his life.

Ron's letters had always been more personal. He seemed to worry a lot about Hermione, who felt a bit guilty about it. But she was also very glad about their correspondence, even if the letters were not exactly happy at times. Because a diary wouldn't have helped, there had to be a real person to write to. And Ron was very much a real person.

They, Hermione and Ron, had never lived together after the war. Ron had gone back to Devon to rebuild the Burrow with his family, Hermione had rented a flat near London, and it hadn't been exactly a good idea considering her state of mind. Crookshanks had been there though, but she had been rather a silent companion. The cat couldn't have prevented Hermione to consume half a bottle of Firewhisky in one night - and that had been quite a lot from a young woman who once had had a very strict attitude towards alcohol. But the times tend to change. She had been alone in a cramped, dusty flat that didn't feel like a home at all. Hogwarts had been her home, but it was no more, and even her old textbooks had been just a painful memory of the past.

Maybe that was why Hermione had taken the job. She had missed the feeling of home like hell. She had read about the vacancy in the Daily Prophet and sent an owl to the new Headmaster, McGonagall, who had soon Apparated to Hermione's flat asking if she really was sure about that. "Certainly," Hermione had said and given McGonagall a little too confident smile. But after all, she was her best student, the brightest witch of her age, like the newspapers had told.

It had been early autumn when Hermione had returned to Hogwarts. Now it was winter, and she was sitting alone in her room, reading a letter from Ron. She traced the familiar, curved letters with her index finger and suddenly felt very warm. _There might be light somewhere, after all_ , she found herself thinking.


End file.
